With less than two weeks to go before Nigeria’s presidential election, the Labour Party’s candidate, Peter Obi, has emerged as the favoured candidate for the majority of potential voters in three separate opinion polls that have been conducted during the past week. They reconfirm that his path to victory would be to: win by large margins in the South-South and Southeast; win in the Northcentral region; and compete fairly well in other regions. If this can be achieved he would coast to victory but, despite what the polls indicate, there are still questions about Obi’s ability to do so.

Separately Stears Data has shown why, despite being by far the most popular candidate among prospective voters, Obi could still lose the election. He was favoured by 27% of the 6,000 or so respondents in the Stears poll, compared to 15% that selected the ruling All Progressives Congress’ (APC) Bola Tinubu, with the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Abubakar Atiku trailing in third place with the support of 12% of eligible voters. Stears also ran various scenarios — including one that accounted for silent voters and voter turnout — which revealed that Obi could lose if voter turnout is low. 

Despite the fact that the majority of voters would deny it, the poll also revealed that religion has a significant impact in determining voting preferences. Around 43% of potential voters who identified as Christian intend to vote for Obi, compared to just 5% of Muslims. Because of Tinubu’s selection of a Muslim vice-presidential running mate from the North, the election has taken on a religious tint.

Meanwhile a separate Bloomberg poll confirmed Obi’s frontrunner status for the Presidency with 66% of potential voters choosing him as their preferred candidate. This is down from the 76% in a previous Bloomberg survey but he still has a huge lead over Tinubu who was second with 29% of respondents selecting him. Its most significant finding, however, is that the majority of undecided voters stated that they were attracted to Obi, with Tinubu coming in second.

The controversy over the redesign of the higher denomination Naira banknotes continues to pit different APC factions against one another. At least five APC states — Kaduna, Kogi, Zamfara, Kano, Niger, and perhaps also Ondo — filed legal suits against the Federal Government and obtained an injunction halting the 10 February deadline when the older banknotes would no longer be legal tender. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the governors’ appeal to overturn the policy on 15 February but Abubakar Malami — the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice — has filed a counter-suit urging the court to reject the petition. The APC is therefore pitted against APC in court despite the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari could have simply requested the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, to reconsider the decision or extend the deadline.

The main opposition PDP is, however, still unable to put its own house in order in preparation for the elections and take advantage of APC’s current troubles. This week it expelled some of its members for anti-party activities in another indication of the internal strife that has rendered it incapable of campaigning successfully and therefore ultimately losing it an election that it could have easily won.  

With the election rapidly approaching, the level of political violence has continued to escalate throughout the country. The possibility that it could disrupt the elections in numerous states remains high but it is not anticipated to be sufficiently widespread or serious enough to affect the outcome of the final vote.